


Networking

by Yrindor



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, BAMF Celty Sturluson, BAMF Sonohara Anri, Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yrindor/pseuds/Yrindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unmodified scientist, a human with abilities she'd rather hide, and a woman made entirely of data were brought together by chance.  But it will take more than chance for them to stop the threat posed by one of the greatest hackers of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Networking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluedreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/gifts).



**Doc:** Speaking of which, where is Setton-san? It's getting a bit late for them not to be here…  
**Saika:** Didn't they say they might be working late tonight?  
**Doc:** Do you think something happened to them?  
**Saika:** It's not that late yet. I'm sure we'd hear if something happened.  
**Doc:** Fine. But if they're still not here in—  
≪Setton has joined the chat≫  
**Doc:** Setton-san!!! We were worried about you!  
**Setton:** You mean _you_ were worried.  
**Setton:** I did say I might be late.  
**Saika:** Is everything okay with your job?  
**Setton:** It is now.  
**Setton:** Someone left a door open last night and some bugs got in, but I took care of them.  
**Doc:** Ew  
**Saika:** That's good to hear, Setton-san.  
≪Begin private chat between Saika and Setton≫  
**Setton:** Are we set to move tonight?  
**Saika:** I'm ready. Are you sure we're clear?  
**Setton:** As sure as I can be. I ran a full scan of all systems from work. There were the usual bugs, but all low-level; I wiped all of them.  
**Saika:** And the virus?  
**Setton:** No sign of it anywhere.  
**Saika:** Would you expect to see it if Nakura really is the one behind it?  
**Setton:** It should have at least left an echo somewhere. It's too quiet.  
**Saika:** Are you suggesting we postpone?  
**Setton:** No, tonight's our best chance. And if we don't stop this before it's released…  
**Setton:** I'll brief Doc when I get back. He'll be my failsafe like usual.  
**Saika:** I'll need at least half an hour to get the systems up and running on my end, but then I'll be ready on your signal.  
**Setton:** Godspeed.  
**Saika:** You too, Celt— Setton-san.  
≪End private chat between Saika and Setton≫  
**Setton:** I have to be back at work early tomorrow as well, so I'm going to sign off now.  
**Setton:** Goodnight, everyone.  
≪Setton has left the chat≫  
**Saika:** Goodnight, Setton-san.  
**Doc:** Night night, Setton-san~  
**Saika:** I should be going too. Goodnight, Doc.  
≪Saika has left the chat≫  
**Doc:** Night.  
**Doc:** Aww, it's too quiet in here now.  
≪Doc has left the chat≫  
≪Kanra has joined the chat≫  
≪Kanra has left the chat≫

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So explain to me again exactly what we're doing," Shinra said once Celty was back in their apartment.

"We're going virus hunting. There's no concrete proof yet, but there are whispers that Nakura's cooked up something extremely nasty this time—nasty as in capable of wiping anything connected to the net if they wanted to. We're going to stop their bug before they can release it."

"If it's still just rumors, how do you know this isn't a wild goose chase?"

"It's Nakura. If there are rumors, it's because they _wanted_ there to be rumors……"

Shinra did know. Nakura was simultaneously one of the best-known and least-known hackers at least in Japan, if not in the world. They were known for striking without warning, and seemingly on a whim. Businesses, governments, and just about every other type of organization had been hit by them without any real pattern.

And no one knew anything about them beyond the name they used.

"You think you know where this virus is?"

"Not yet, but I think I know how to find it."

"Let me get this straight, you're using rumors that are probably from Nakura themself as reason to go hunting for a virus that may or may not exist. And then hope you find it and can somehow do something about it before it's released into the wider net. That sounds like the perfect setup for a trap to me."

"Which is why I'm taking Anri with me, and why you're going to be our failsafe. You'll have a headset, and I'll hook your glasses up to the interface like usual. You won't be able to interact with the network the same way we do, but you should at least be able to see and hear what we are. You know the signal, and you know what to do, right?"

"If you give the signal, I pull the plug immediately, which should isolate the program offline, but it also leaves you trapped in there with it forever. Just for the record, I still don't like that option."

"If this virus is as bad as the rumors say, and we start losing control of it, it's still far better than the alternative where it takes out the rest of the internet too."

"Don't make me have to do this, Celty," Shinra said quietly.

"I'll try my best," Celty promised as she typed several strings of commands into her console. "Okay, you should be linked in now. Can you hear me through your headset?"

"Yep."

"Good." Celty flipped through more screens rapidly until she pulled up a new chat window. "Are you ready, Saika?" she asked.

"Give me a minute," Anri's voice echoed back through the headset.

 _"Can you hear me now, Setton?"_ she asked, her voice duplicated through the headset and directly through the network.

_"Loud and clear. I'm going in now."_

"And we're live," Celty said out loud for the benefit of Shinra before she tapped a few more settings and…disappeared…into computer for lack of a better word. No matter how many times it happened, Shinra still couldn't wrap his head around it. When he had first discovered the AI in the hold of the cargo shuttle his father brought back, he hadn't thought much of it. After all, AIs weren't uncommon, though none of them had reached the level of being a believable surrogate for human intelligence.

Except this particular one was nothing like any AI he had ever met before he learned that night when he inspected it more closely out of curiosity. He had been expecting a body of electronics and lightweight polymer shaped into a semblance of a human form. Instead he had found an AI who, so far as he could tell, was _made_ of data. He had taken off its helmet to see the face underneath, except all he had found was sweeping tendrils of code and strings of binary streaming out from where the neck had been.

Under all of the laws he knew, such a thing shouldn't even have been possible. Data had no physical manifestation. It was just information, impulses; it was impossible to have a body made entirely of pure data.

Celty apparently hadn't received that message, because despite the impossibility of it, it didn't seem to stop her from existing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celty nearly sighed as she slipped into the network. She could exist out in the physical world, but it wasn't where she was meant to be. OUt there, she always felt isolated and disconnected. In here, she was part of something much larger, and she could feel the ebb and flow of information rushing around her.

She sent a sliver of data down into the stream, watching it get carried away by the torrent until it hit a familiar node.

_"Do you read me, Saika?"_

The response came back almost instantly, the impulses traveling far too fast for any human, even a modified one, to follow.

_"Loud and clear, Setton. Me and anyone else who's looking."_

With the link confirmed, Celty wasted no time in activating her cloaking, coaxing the data around her to flow past as if she wasn't there at all. As Anri had said, spending any amount of time unshielded in the network carried with it the possibility of being discovered, but it was also the fastest way to set up communication between them. Once their link was established though, she could shield herself as thoroughly as she wanted without disturbing it.

_"I'm going in deeper. Let me know if you see anything unusual from your end._

_"Will do. Nothing so far._

Celty wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for, but she knew the minute she found it. The shielding on the space was nearly perfect, the only sign of its existence was a faint absence of an echo in the undercurrents she had been listening to. She was used to code created by humans being a mere entertainment at best, with none of them anywhere near what she was capable of, but if she hadn't known better, she would have sworn the space was created by another data being like herself. The code twisted and slipped through her fingers as she tried to tease it apart, the individual layers feeding back into themselves in complicated loops that hid traps embedded within them.

It took longer than she would have liked, but eventually, the entire construct folded before her, revealing its contents.

One glance was all it took to tell her that she had found what they were looking for. The tight coil of code sitting innocuously in the middle of the bubble was _wrong_. There was no other word to describe it. The code itself was warped and twisted, and it made her feel vaguely ill to look at it for too long.

She was just beginning to consider how she could manage to contain the thing without touching it when the data in front of her began rearranging itself. She stepped back immediately, throwing up fragments of code to protect against anything thrown her way.

 _"Saika?"_ she asked.

_"I see it too."_

_"Kanra,"_ Celty said as a familiar digital signature began arranging itself in front of her. _"Or should I say Nakura?"_

_"You don't sound surprised."_

_"I've always suspected you had more up your sleeve than you let on."_

_"You wouldn't be wrong. I was bored, but now that you've come along, let's play."_

Without warning, the walls the Celty had carefully deconstructed only moments earlier sprang back to life, this time trapping her on the inside with Izaya and his virus. The walls completely isolated the space within them from the rest of the network; she couldn't hear Anri and Shinra anymore at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Celt— Setton-san!!!" Anri heard Shinra yell into his headset as Celty vanished.

"What do I do, Saika!? How do we know what's happening in there? What if the virus infects Setton and we don't know in time because I can't hear her?"

"Give me minute, Doc," Anri ordered as she yanked wires out of a tangle by her console. "Keep watching the spot where Setton and Kanra disappeared. If the virus starts escaping, pull the plug immediately and let me know. Otherwise, give me two minutes; I'm going in after her."

As she spoke, Anri jammed a couple of connectors into the port on her forearm that she normally kept hidden under her clothes. She ignored the jolt of a rushed and overly forceful connection, favoring speed over comfort. She couldn't slip into the network the way Celty could, but she had some tricks of her own.

By linking to the network, she had gained awareness of all of the other consoles around her, and it was a simple matter to send a ping out to all of those nodes identifying herself. As soon as they recognized her, they dropped whatever they were doing and offered their assistance.

There was a reason she didn't directly interface with the network most of the time. Unless she kept herself perfectly shielded, everything nearby would notice her, and once they did, they effectively turned into zombie bots that were useless for their usual tasks until she broke the connection. It was a power that would have been incredibly destructive in the hands of someone like Nakura, but to her, it was more of an inconvenience than anything else.

Except in this particular situation, she used it to her advantage. She took all of the nearby nodes and used them to construct a multi-level containment ring around the spot where Celty had disappeared. With the outer ring preventing anything from spilling out, she turned her attention to deconstructing Nakura's walls just as Celty had before. Unlike Celty, she couldn't do it directly, and she knew she never would have done it if she hadn't watched Celty go through the entire process, but after a few close calls, she finally managed to get her inner circle of repurposed bots to break through the code.

The walls folded in on themselves once more to reveal Celty desperately trying to fend off the virus as Nakura looked on.

 _"Setton!"_ Anri yelled, trying to figure out how she could help.

Izaya looked up in surprise; he clearly hadn't expected to be interrupted.

 _"Well, you've entertained me for the time being, but I think I should be going now. Let's play again sometime,"_ he said.

Anri tried to send some of her bots after him, but she was too slow. He was gone seemingly without a trace.

With his departure, the virus seemed to slow down, and Celty was able to free herself from its tangles. Anri's bots quickly moved in and surrounded it.

 _Are you okay, Setton-san?_ Anri asked.

_I want to do a full system scan once we get out of here, but I think so. That virus was nasty, but I don't think it ever managed to get a foothold._

_"That's good to hear. So what do we do with this?"_ Anri asked, gesturing to the now-contained virus.

_"Do you think your bots can move it out into one of my empty servers? If so, then Doc can take it offline, and I'll destroy it._

_"That shouldn't be too difficult. Did you catch that, Doc?"_

_"Loud and clear. Just tell me when and where."_

With both Anri and Celty working on it, it took mere minutes to force the virus out of the main network and into a node belonging to Celty's servers.

_"Doc, look at the server rack to the left of the console. One of the servers should have a red light and a green light on now."_

_"Give me a minute...Okay, I see it. The top one."_

_"Unplug that one now."_

No sooner had Celty spoken than the virus disappeared from her view. She heard Anri breathe a sigh of relief, and she knew she would have done the same if she could.

 _"I think we're done. Let's get out of here,"_ she said.

 _"I couldn't agree more,"_ Anri replied. _"Good work tonight, everyone."_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celty had barely finished returning to her physical manifestation when she found herself crushed in a bear hug.

"Don't ever do that again," Shinra ordered. "Do you have any idea how much it scared me when you disappeared like that? And what did Kanra mean he wants to play again sometime?"

"It means he's just as unpleasant in the virtual world as he is in the physical one, and I have no desire to play with him in either."

"I think that's a common reaction," Shinra said dourly. "I'm just glad he let you go in the end."

"So am I. Though if he hadn't, he would have had to face down Anri, and she's not someone you want to underestimate."

"Neither of you are."

**Author's Note:**

> Your letter mentioned that you like less-traditional styles, AUs, and strong female characters, so I tried to run with that. I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
